


The Laws of Aerodynamics

by PieHeda



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Warehouse 13
Genre: Angst, Drugs, F/F, Fear, institutionalization, psychiatric ward
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieHeda/pseuds/PieHeda
Summary: Claudia Donovan is tortured by visions of the past. She checks herself into an institution, and quickly learns that it is not what she expected. She meets a strange woman there. She is not what Claudia expected, either.





	The Laws of Aerodynamics

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by a wonderful and fun Ghostbusters/Warehouse 13 crossover called 2 [Brilliant, Sexy] Beautiful Nerds > 1 by AudreyV. Find it here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8000416. In that story, Holtzmann interrupts Claudia when she tries to say where the two met, and it made me wonder: what if they met while Claudia was institutionalized? What would that be like? 
> 
> From there, things got dark. 
> 
> This is going to be multiple chapters. I'm not really sure how many yet; possibly 5. Future chapters go to darker places than any other fiction I've written, and that's been challenging. I'm publishing the first chapter now to force myself to keep this moving.

Claudia looked around the rec room of the institution, wondering what she’d gotten herself into. She’d begun to question the wisdom of checking in here when she saw the room that would be hers; a small room just big enough for a dresser and a squeaky twin bed. She wondered what she would even need the dresser for, considering that she was immediately given plain pajamas and slippers, and that she was told that everything she came in with would be kept in a locker until she was ready to leave.

“This looks grim,” she told herself, as she tried to look outside through the grimy barred window in her room while she changed.

The rec room convinced her. She looked around at the white walls, marked with stains and scribbled graffiti from the other patients.  She looked at the patients, who all appeared to be weighed down by an invisible net. Their heads were turned downward, their complexions were gray, their expressions defeated.

“The public health system at its finest,” she muttered to herself. “Nice going, Claud.”

“Ohhh, you don’t want to make a habit of that.” She startled at the voice very close to her. A woman was in a chair to her left, not sitting but squatting, feet in the chair, elbows on her knees. Her head was turned up to face Claudia, and the posture made her look like a perched owl. Except, Claudia noted, that her hair specifically defied the laws of aerodynamics. The woman had a wild, high tangle of blonde hair, held back only by a pair of clear safety goggles strapped to her forehead. The goggles reminded Claudia of chemistry lab in school.

“A habit of what now?” she said to the woman.

“Talking to yourself,” she said, stroking her chin with two fingers. She slid the fingers up her cheek and held her hand beside her mouth as if trying to hide her lips from spying eyes, and whispered “That’s what crazy people do.” Then she placed a single finger over her lips and pursed her lips to mime _shh_.  

“Got it,” said Claudia.

“You’re new around here,” said the blonde, reaching out from her lips to tug on the edge of Claudia’s pajamas. “New duds,” she said. “What are you in for?”

Claudia looked down at her hands, staring at her black painted fingernails. Hallucinating her dead brother repeatedly? An unacceptable system error, and she was here to debug that code thoroughly and chuck that out with the latest upgrades. Making friends with Einstein’s mad hairdresser on day one? Not conducive to efficient results.

“It’ll all come out in group,” said the blonde, as if she could read Claudia’s thoughts. “No secrets here. Well. Some secrets, but this kind, the HIPAA right to privacy kind… no.”

“I see ghosts,” said Claudia. The woman was right. She consented to group therapy during admission.

“No, that’s not crazy enough,” said the blonde. “Everyone sees ghosts. Do you know how many people in this country believe in ghosts? 42 percent. Most people, even people that don’t believe, have seen something that they can’t quite explain, something,” and here, the blonde woman rose to stand halfway in the chair and stare at Claudia at eye level, “that you or I would describe as ghosts.”

“Yeah?” said Claudia, desperately looking around the room for a way to escape this conversation. “Is that why you’re here? You see ghosts?”

“I created a nuclear device in my university’s lab that discharged unexpectedly and injured 5 people.”

“Um, accidents happen?” said Claudia.

“I created the device to see if it was possible to contain a spectral entity,” said the blonde. “See, that’s the thing. You can see ghosts; not crazy. But if you think you can catch them, you’re all cuckoo bananas,” she said, gesturing loops around her ears. “And so now I’m here until such time as the finest underpaid shrinks that the state has to offer determine that I am sound of mind. No graduation without evaluation.”

“And how’s that working out for you?” said Claudia.

The blonde wrinkled her nose and gritted her teeth. “Not too good,” she said. “I guess they gave you some chemical extremes?”

Claudia looked confused.

“Drugs!” the blonde said in a loud whisper, shaking her fists giddily. “What’d they give you? How much? Know your drugs, Red. That’s elementary. Easy as do re mi.”

“No drugs. Saying no to drugs. Except for a tranquilizer before therapy tomorrow. And speaking of which, I suddenly need to call my social worker,” she said, wondering if she could get out before they had a chance to tranquilize her. She was becoming more concerned by the minute.

“Phone call?” said the blonde. “Can’t do that. Phone calls only on Fridays, and those are doctor’s discretion.”

“I can’t make a phone call?” Claudia said, genuinely startled. Why wasn’t that disclosed in the paperwork?

The blonde shook her head. “That’s communication with the outside world. You want all us crazies spreading insanity through phone lines? Plague of madness, Red,” she said. “Got to keep it quarantined, locked up safe in here.”

“I need to go…” Claudia paused, wondering what she could do, “talk. To someone.”

The woman suddenly hopped to the floor. Claudia saw she was wearing a hospital gown open in the front over a tank top that was probably once white, but was now a dingy gray. Her pajama pants were cuffed to halfway up her calves, revealing black combat boots without laces. She wondered where she got real shoes. _The same commissary where they sell all-purpose safety glasses to psychiatric patients that like to blow up their fellow students, no doubt_ , she thought. The blonde stood in Claudia’s path, a bit too close to her. She leaned up at her. “I’m someone. And once you learn that they don’t listen and you need to talk to someone real, come find me. I’m Holtzmann,” she added.

“Right,” said Claudia. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And what do I call you, Red?” she said, taking Claudia’s collar with the pretense of straightening it, but using the gesture to move very close to her face.

“Claudia,” she said.

“Alright, Claudia,” said Holtzmann, smoothing the collar down and then stepping out of the way.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally had Holtzmann looking down at Claudia, but I googled the respective heights of the actresses. Allison Scagliotti is 5' 7". Kate McKinnon is 5' 3 1/2" (I want to pause to acknowledge the adorableness of that half inch. At some point when Kate McKinnon's celebrity rose to a level that her height was no longer private, she made sure that we knew she was not THAT short. Half an inch taller, in fact. Bless you, tiny Kate). 
> 
> Also, I imagine Holtzmann's hair as even crazier while in an institution, but I couldn't think of a good way of communicating that. So picture her hair turned up to 11.


End file.
